Here's why Australia's crackdown on online piracy is not going to work

New laws to block overseas websites that infringe copyright have been high on the agenda for Australia as part of an nationwide crackdown on online piracy.

The new Bill — allowing all content rights holders to lodge a court order with the Federal Court against sites which facilitate piracy — has already received bipartisan support by the Parliament who are expected to vote on the issue next week.

But according to Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, the federal government’s attempts to block overseas web services are not the answer to curbing illegal downloading in Australia.

The Swedish co-founder of one of the world’s most notorious file-sharing websites points to the loopholes in the website-blocking measures especially since VPNs used to access torrent providers and blocked sites have escaped the Bill.